medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Colmán O'Clabaigh, OSB, you wrote:
>Does anyone know when the practise regarding infants began, either in
>Ireland or elsewehere? What was the rationale behind it? Do references to it
>occur in medieval literature and sermons ?
This is not exactly smack in the middle of it, but may still be of interest.
In Denmark and Sweden (I have very little information of Norway),
"heathens" (including unbaptized children, women who had not yet been
"church-taken" after birth, suicides, criminals, and foreigners of whose
faith one might feel uncertain, especially drowned sailors) have been
buried outside of, or on the edge of, consecrated gound since Christianity
was accepted. The earliest example I know of was mentioned in my posting on
St Margrethe (July 19), who was thought to have committed suicide in 1176.
Those who were suspected of tendencies to become ghosts were usually buried
where three plots of land met, "trebundet skel" (somewhat similar to the
custom of buring such people at crossroads), or staked down, or both.
The belief that some people were so bad that the consecrated earth
would not have them well documented; in some cases they were then reburied
in "heathen" earth - which would not always have them, either!
The "hedningehøj" (Dan., heathens' mound) or "främdlinghög"
(Swed., foreigners' mound) would always be north of the church, which is
the least attractive part of the churchyard in Scandinavia. It is never a
mound, except in the cases where the Great Plague in the 1340's
necessitated mass burials; they usually took place here because there was
space for it. The idea of a mound goes back to pagan times; to be buried in
a mound was synonymous with being buried as a heathen; the formula for the
death sentence of thieves was "galge, høj og hedne jord" (gallows, mound
and heathen earth), and the gallows were very often placed on pagan grave
mounds.
The custom of burying heathens apart lasted well into the 1800's
here; the last remains of it I know of was a Catholic who wished to be
buried in a small Danish community in the late 1990's; after some dispute
he was given space north of the church. In 1849, after the battle of
Fredericia when the secessionist Schleswig-Holsteiners lost, the fallen of
the latter (ca. 300) were buried north of the St Michaëlis Church -
together with two citizens who had committed suicide during the battle!
There is quite a good deal of folklore concerning unbaptized
children, in particular those born in secrecy and murdered by the mother
(they wish to be baptized). The Reverend Feilberg, one of the founding
father of Folkloristics in Denmark, dedicated a section of his book
_Sjæletro_ (beliefs of souls)(1914) to it.
Best
Lars
--------------------------
Lars Hemmingsen, Ph.D. of Folklore
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